MANILA, Philippines—Freed Swiss hostage Andreas Notter flew home to Switzerland with a heavy heart Tuesday night—leaving behind a story that puts an end to the mystery of how he regained his freedom after three months of captivity.

He said he escaped from Abu Sayyaf captivity in the jungle by following the stars.

In a text message he sent to friends while still in Zamboanga—before leaving for Manila, where he took a plane bound for Hong Kong—Notter indicated that among his last thoughts were about his ailing Italian colleague Eugenio Vagni, who remains in the kidnappers’ hands.

“Dear all, due to the special circumstances, I ... leave the country today. It (is) very hard (for) me to leave Eugenio and you [friends] behind,” the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) worker said in his text message.

“This [impersonal] text message is the only possible way I’ve left to express my thanks for all your support and help during my stay in the Philippines and to say goodbye.”

After seeing off Notter, Sen. Richard Gordon, who is also Philippine National Red Cross chair, recounted to reporters the story Notter told him of how his more than three months’ captivity ended with him walking to freedom before dawn on Saturday.

Gordon said Notter used the survival skills he learned as a Red Cross worker.

Reading by the stars

The senator said the Swiss and the bandits guarding him were walking in the dark when one of his captors tripped and fell on the ground.

“I heard him fall and looked for him but could not find him,” Gordon quoted Notter as saying. “And when I looked for the other one walking ahead of me, I could not find him either.”

Gordon said Notter “used the stars” to find his way in the dark, and that he went down on a mountain slope until he reached a road that led him back to freedom.

Speaking in Filipino, Gordon said: “He knows how to navigate by the stars. He knows where the North, South, East and West were. So he followed that until he came to the road.”

Abu Sayyaf ‘very nervous’

“Obviously they lost me,” Gordon quoted Notter as saying.

During his getaway trek, Notter encountered several villagers along the way, but they only looked at him as he passed by.

Notter walked for about an hour until he reached an unmanned checkpoint. He continued walking and finally came to a second checkpoint manned by police.

Notter introduced himself and the policemen took him on a jeepney to their station in Indanan town.

Separated from Vagni

Two days before he walked free, Notter was separated from Vagni, Gordon said. By then, the bandits appeared to have become so nervous “that they would jump to their feet” at the sound of a falling coconut or durian fruit.

Notter boarded Philippine Airlines flight 321 for Hong Kong, where he was to take a Swiss Air connecting flight to Geneva. He was escorted to Hong Kong by fellow Red Cross worker Marco Albertini.

Gordon said Notter did not harbor any “bitterness” toward the Abu Sayyaf. “He wanted the government to speak to them to bring peace to the area,” Gordon said.

Various government officials had given different versions of how the Swiss regained his freedom. Some said he was “rescued,” others said he escaped, while still others said he was abandoned by his captors during a government pursuit.

Help of relatives

Armed Forces Civil Relations chief Brig. Gen. Gaudencio Pangilinan said officials were trying to persuade the bandits’ relatives to release Vagni, who is said to be suffering from hernia and had difficulty walking.

“Part of the pressure is to woo relatives so they would abandon their dastardly acts. We are getting them to convince their relatives to give up criminal activities,” Pangilinan said.

In Basilan province, police rescued a kidnapped farm worker in Albarkah town on Monday night, reducing to five the number of people still in captivity in Basilan.

Police said the five were schoolteachers Janette delos Reyes, Raphael Mayonado and Freires Quizon, microfinance lending collector Leah Laping Patriz of the Kasanyangan Foundation Inc., and Umar Jaleel, a Sri Lankan peace worker. With a report from Tarra Quismundo